Case Western's student startups showcased at international Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas

Posted Jan 10, 2018

Erica Kraus, the student operations lead for ThinkBox, helps set up Case Row on Monday before the start of CES 2018. The industrial design major is a junior at Cleveland Institute of Art, which is part of ThinkBox, a facility where students can make inventions. (CWRU)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Young entrepreneurs from Case Western Reserve University are in Las Vegas this week to display their innovations at the international Consumer Electronics Show.

The university is showcasing inventions and business startups created by 10 current and former Case students.

Young entrepreneurs can get feedback on their innovations, find strategic partners, investors and suppliers, as well as check out competing startups, said Bob Sopko, director of the CWRU LaunchNet program.

"This gets you in front of thousands of people," Sopko said. CES, which attracts 170,000 participants from 150 countries, runs through Friday.

Case has the most prominent presence, with 10 booths, in the University Innovation section of Eureka park, an area devoted to startups. The university's footprint at CES is also a recruitment tool, attracting attention from high school students and their parents who are attending CES and are impressed by Case's entrepreneurial spirit, Sopko said.

The Case contingent includes students involved with LaunchNet, which helps students and alumni turn ideas into new businesses. Sopko invited LaunchNet entrepreneurs to apply to be part of the Case team at CES, and nearly all of the applicants were chosen to go.

Among the Case projects at CES are:

12LeadTrainer,

Apollo Medical Devices,

"Beauty and the Bolt,

CrystalE Sensors

Enabled Robotics,

Intwine Connect LLC

NE Ohio Immersive Technology

New Territory,

Reflexion Interactive Technologies

RVS Rubber Solutions

This is the fifth year that Case has had a presence at CES. The School of Engineering and LaunchNet share the cost of renting booths at the show, and students pay their own travel expenses, Sopko said. Some students drove from Cleveland to Las Vegas so they could bring their prototypes to display.

"These students will have had experience at one of the biggest trade shows in the world," Sopko said.